Monstrous Design Read online

  MONSTROUS

  DESIGN

  Also by Kat Dunn

  Dangerous Remedy

  KAT

  DUNN

  MONSTROUS

  DESIGN

  AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS

  www.headofzeus.com

  This is a Zephyr book, first published in the UK in 2021 by Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Kat Dunn, 2021

  The moral right of Kat Dunn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781789543681

  ISBN (E): 9781789543674

  Cover design by Laura Brett

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  For Mum.

  I miss you.

  To betray someone, first you must begin with trust.

  Contents

  Also by Kat Dunn

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  The story so far…

  PART ONE: Bone China

  1. A Slum Near Rue St Denis

  2. A Country House in England

  3. A Slum Near Rue St Denis

  4. Henley House

  5. The Grounds of Henley House

  6. Henley House

  7. A Slum Near Rue St Denis

  8. The Drawing Room, Henley House

  9. The Faubourg Saint Jacques

  10. The Streets of London

  PART TWO: Entente Cordiale

  1. A Room in the St Giles Rookery

  2. A Dressmaker’s, London

  3. The Printing House of L’Ami d’Égalité

  4. A Room in the St Giles Rookery

  5. Lord Harford’s Study

  6. St Bart’s Hospital

  7. 6 Bedford Square

  8. St Bart’s Hospital

  9. The Printing House of L’Ami d’Égalité

  10. Buckbridge Street

  11. 6 Bedford Square

  12. The Faubourg Saint Jacques

  13. A Flophouse in the Rookery

  PART THREE: Empire of Death

  1. The Duc’s Headquarters

  2. The Rookery

  3. 6 Bedford Square

  4. A Gin Palace Near the Rookery

  5. A Carriage on the Rue St-Jacques

  6. 6 Bedford Square

  7. 6 Bedford Square

  8. 6 Bedford Square

  9. Palais d’Égalité

  10. Bedford Square

  11. The Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens

  12. Ada’s House, the Marais

  13. The Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens

  14. The Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens

  PART FOUR: Cry Havoc

  1. A Supper Box in the Pleasure Gardens, after Midnight

  2. Ada’s House, the Marais

  3. Wickham’s Study, St Bart’s Hospital

  4. The Catacombs

  5. Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

  6. The Catacombs

  7. Wickham’s Study, St Bart’s Hospital

  8. Paradise Lost, a Gambling Den in Covent Garden

  9. The Operating Theatre

  10. The Catacombs

  11. The Operating Theatre

  12. The Operating Theatre on Fire

  13. The Salon, the Duc’s Headquarters

  PART FIVE: L’Enfer

  1. 6 Bedford Square

  2. The National Convention

  3. The Garden at 6 Bedford Square

  4. Camille’s Bedroom, Bedford Square

  5. A Ship Off the English Coast

  6. 6 Bedford Square

  7. A Coaching Inn Not Too Far from Henley-upon-Thames

  8. Henley House

  9. The Dining Room, Henley House

  10. The Vestry Outside the Chapel

  PART SIX: Begin with Trust

  1. Henley House

  2. The Chapel

  3. The Long Gallery

  4. The Long Gallery

  5. The Servants’ Passages

  6. The Entrance Hall

  7. The Grounds of Henley House

  8. The Grounds of Henley House

  9. A Bedroom, Henley House

  Postscript

  Paris, a Month Before

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  About Zephyr

  The story so far…

  Weeks have passed since the Conciergerie job that changed everything. The Battalion of the Dead had broken into the prison to rescue Olympe Marie de l’Aubespine for her father – only to discover the entire mission was based on lies.

  Olympe was no aristocrat’s daughter, and to start with they hadn’t even been sure she was human. Her uncanny ability to manipulate electricity seemed like magic. But Ada knew the truth lay somewhere closer to science – a branch of science the world hadn’t yet discovered.

  The Royalist Duc de l’Aubespine, who had originally hired them, demanded the battalion hand Olympe over. She was his pet project: an attempt to harness electricity and create a secret weapon that would restore the Bourbon dynasty to the toppled throne of France. As if that hadn’t been enough, the Revolutionaries who had locked Olympe up were just as eager to get her back. The desperate fight to deliver Olympe to safety had been the deadliest job the battalion had ever faced, hunted by the duc’s henchman Dorval through burning theatres and macabre laboratories – and they had almost managed it. The Revolutionaries thought Olympe was dead, but the Royalists were still after her. And then, at the eleventh hour, Camille’s English ex-fiancé, James, had turned traitor and kidnapped Olympe.

  Camille and Al left for England in pursuit of Olympe and James, while Ada and Guil stayed behind – the duc remained a threat, and they needed to know what he was planning.

  PART ONE

  Bone China

  1

  A Slum Near Rue St Denis

  7 Thermidor, Year II

  25 July 1794

  ‘So, are you ready to die?’

  Ada’s face was cast in shadow as she spoke. The cramped medieval streets were unlit, and the buildings gathered too close for any moonlight to reach them. A meaty scent of offal and human waste wafted out of the gutters; in the distance the faint sound of bells tolled midnight. Summer had turned, bringing a sticky heat with it even at night.

  Paris was rotting.

  Beside her crouched Guil, eyes wide and wary as he watched the narrow opening of the alley they hid in. It was clear: they were unobserved.

  Ada raised her eyebrows in question. ‘I can do it now or we can keep waiting, but you’ve got to die in the next half hour or I won’t make it home in time.’

  ‘Perhaps we should locate ourselves somewhere a little more noticeable first.’ Guil wrinkled his nose. ‘If I die here I’m not sure anyone will be able to tell me apart from the refuse.’

  Ada rolled her eyes. ‘Fine, I’ll take your artistic sensibilities into account choosing the next spot.’

  She gathered up the battered canvas bag that held her supplies and followed him to the street. Here at least were a few signs of life: lights in mullioned windows,
voices coming from the leaning upper levels of the timber-framed houses.

  ‘There.’ Guil pointed to an alcove closer to the main road where dray carts and drunks were trundling past. ‘That’s our stage.’

  ‘You’re sure the resurrection men will come?’

  He shrugged. ‘Léon may not like me as much as he likes Al, but I trust he still gives me good intelligence. The dead go missing from the slums in the hour after midnight, though no guarantee they will pass through tonight. If they do, we will only have a few moments’ warning.’

  ‘You’d better hope they turn up. All these late nights had me falling asleep in my soup yesterday.’

  Guil folded himself into the alcove, looking hurt. ‘You seem very eager to kill me. I wonder if I should be taking this personally.’

  ‘What, and lose the suitor my father is so delighted I’ve finally found? Heavens, what a scandal that would cause.’

  ‘I think he would be delighted if you were being courted by a pot plant.’

  Ada snorted and tucked herself in beside him. ‘As long as the plant had never belonged to Camille.’

  She had met Camille when she still used her family name, du Bugue, but when she had formed the battalion she had taken the name Laroche after her mother. Camille du Bugue was the girl she’d fallen in love with, but Camille Laroche was the one with whom she had built a life.

  As far as her father was concerned, Ada had abandoned Camille and finally decided to go ‘home’. He was only too happy to believe that the business with Olympe and the Revolutionaries had scared her enough to leave the Bataillon des Morts; Guil turning up as her so-called suitor had made him all the happier. His daughter home and a handsome young army officer interested in her hand was the realisation of near all his dreams. Ada was disgusted by how simple his hopes for her future were.

  Camille and Al had long since left for England. Ada and Guil had spent the whole time investigating, but they’d learned nothing of the duc’s plans. Each plot they formed, each thread they followed, came up blank. The grisly abbey laboratory had been abandoned, the duc’s former hôtel had been seized by the Revolutionary army to billet soldiers, and the servants who had worked for him were impossible to track down. He seemed to have no allies, no home, nothing.

  He was a ghost.

  For a while, Ada had let the thought grow in her mind: maybe he really had gone. The blow of being defeated by a gang of outsiders had been too crushing and he’d bowed out. It was a nice thought, but from what little she’d experienced of the duc, she knew it couldn’t be true. He was out there, somewhere, doing god knows what to god knows who. Only she and Guil could stop him.

  Now they were down to their last hope. Their last foolhardy plan. A very, very stupid, dangerous plan – but that was the Bataillon des Morts. The Battalion of the Dead. They wouldn’t give up until they’d tried everything.

  Even death.

  They had been settled into the alcove for only a few minutes when a scrawny girl appeared. Her lank hair hung loose around her gaunt face and her clothes were held together by dirt and wishful thinking. She looked them over, then gave Guil a curt nod.

  ‘There’s two of them tonight,’ she said. ‘Took Marcel Leclerc already.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Guil.

  ‘Yes. I saw them do it. I’m not a liar.’

  ‘I know you’re not.’ He dug in his pocket and tossed her a coin. ‘Get out of here, mousling. Stay safe.’

  The girl snatched it out of the air and bolted. Ada thrummed with adrenaline. It was now or never.

  Guil pushed her bag of supplies over. His eyes were dark, unreadable. ‘I’m ready to die.’

  2

  A Country House in England

  James stood in the anteroom of his father’s study, trying his best not to pace. A footman had assured him Lord Harford was inside seeing to some other business and would see him shortly. So James waited, sweat drying under his linens, his boots still dusty from the hard ride from London.

  The urge to pace was strong. He felt, as always when meeting his father, as if a jar of live bees had been emptied inside him, every moment angry and at risk of being stung. But pacing only made him look weak; it was his anxiety painted on the outside. He would not let his father see it. He stilled himself, clasping his hands behind his back as he’d seen his father do in his Westminster office, listening to complaining constituents or lobbyists in smart waistcoats. A statesman’s pose.

  The anteroom bridged the gap between the airy, light rooms his mother kept decorated to contemporary tastes and the sombre, tomb-like gloom of his father’s study. Tobacco-stained wood panelling covered every wall, Ottoman rugs muffled footsteps, and shelf after shelf was filled with editions of Hansard, biographies of politicians, Greek and Latin texts, and copious snuff boxes, horse bronzes, ivory bookends, and even a Roundhead helmet from the Civil War.

  His father had always seen to political business from behind his vast desk, or administered disinterested beatings when, as a boy, James had smashed crockery or hidden mice in his sister’s bed. James remembered waiting in the anteroom on countless nervous occasions. In the thick rug a track of bare threads marked where he’d paced each time, a lifetime of worry etched in one spot.

  James would not pace. He was a man now. What he had to say was worth hearing, and this time, he would make his father listen.

  The corner held a shelf, bare except for a single treasured display piece: a duelling pistol resting on a stand, inlaid pearl handle iridescent beside the dark wood. Its barrel was freshly polished and a small leather pouch of shot and powder sat to one side to complete the display. James stopped before it. He knew this pistol well – the weight of it, the smoothness of its handle against his palm.

  A muscle in his jaw flickered.

  Its twin had belonged to his father’s best friend – Camille’s father. Since he’d taken it from her that frantic day in the foundations of the Madeleine church, he’d not been able to bring himself to touch it. Instead, he’d stuffed it beneath a floorboard in his digs in London, along with any thought of Camille. But he couldn’t help thinking of her now. How her pale face had turned up to him, looking so young in her shock and confusion. Then anger had taken over, and the Camille he had known was consumed by someone who had every reason to hate him.

  No – he wouldn’t feel guilty. He’d done what he had to do, and that was as complicated as this needed to be.

  He crossed to the window, looking at the formal gardens and the ha-ha beyond, then crossed back to the door, his legs springy with tension. He turned to loop back to the window – oh, hell, he was pacing – and the study door was flung open in his path.

  It took him a moment to realise it was not his father standing in the open doorway. A broad-shouldered man just reaching middle age strode through, all but slamming the door behind him. He had a shock of brown hair that tumbled into his eyes in a windswept fashion, his handsome features made even more appealing by the addition of a dashing scar running from temple to jaw. James was used to seeing him in a rubber apron with his shirtsleeves rolled up and blood splattered to his elbows. Seeing his surgery tutor in a suit and cravat was disconcerting.

  Seeing him right now was the last thing James wanted.

  He recovered himself. Bright eyes, light smile, give nothing away.

  ‘Mr Wickham. I did not realise you had business with my father.’

  The man’s face was twisted, lips drawn back in a snarl. Then he noticed James and, not missing a beat, his expression smoothed into a winning smile, eyes twinkling.

  ‘James, good Lord! How very nice to see you.’ He took James’s hand and shook it, palms rough with calluses in stark contrast to his crisply pressed shirt and frock coat. ‘How nice to see you safe, I should say.’

  ‘Quite safe – though only now returned. I would have come to you first, but I have been away from my family for too long – and my mother’s health…’

  He was overdoing it. Wickham would surely se
e through him at once. He’d never been any good at lying to his tutor, not about late assignments or missed lectures, nothing. When Wickham had taken James and his friend, Edward, under his wing as protégés, James had thought he’d finally found the recognition he’d always yearned for from his father. He would never have believed then that one day he’d want to lie to Wickham.

  To betray him.

  With a hand on his arm, the surgeon steered him to a quiet corner. ‘Your letters were frustratingly vague. We must talk fully – in London. Aubespine’s notes are fascinating; it seems he did create an electrical being after all, but in quite the novel manner. A baby! Such a shame you were not able to find the girl. It would have put our research forward by decades.’

  James sorted through a series of suitable expressions in his head and settled on earnest interest. The notes he had sent Wickham were Ada’s notes, along with the Duc de l’Aubespine’s papers she had stolen detailing Olympe’s creation. He’d been working with Wickham and Edward on similar electrical research to the duc, and when Wickham had heard word of the duc’s apparent success, they’d agreed James, with his French connections, would travel to Paris to search for her. But when he’d found Olympe and seen what she could do, he’d decided on a new plan, one that didn’t involve his tutor or his friend at all.

  Wickham was watching him closely. ‘Are you completely sure there’s nothing else?’

  James swallowed around the lump in his throat. That was what he had learned about betrayal in France: it hurt. When someone mattered to you, when you had thought your future lay with them, it would always hurt. Wickham and Edward had offered him something once, just as Camille had.

  But futures changed.

  Everything was a choice, wasn’t it?

  He had different plans now, and if what he had to do hurt, so be it.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I would have searched further but the city wasn’t safe…’